Making for Maker Faire Berlin - We are building demos

[Guido Körber]

Coming weekend is Maker Faire Berlin. So it gets urgent to finish our display for the show.

Every time we face the same question: How to best demonstrate what you can do with our products.

One of our demos this time will be a joystick for MAME. We did already show how this works, but this time we do it with style. As a left over from an old project we had a nice wooden box equipped with arcade machine quality switches and joystick sitting in storage.

This unit will be equipped with a KW24-8MOD keyboard controller so it generates the proper keystrokes to control the MAME arcade machine simulator.

We will document the necessary steps here in the forum.

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[Guido Körber]

The first step is to check which keys are required and to mark them in the key code table of the KeyWarrior24-8.

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[Guido Körber]

We found that the contacts of the switches were a bit corroded. Cleaning with a fiber brush did help this. Though soldering does require some patience, the large contacts take a while to heat up properly

In the first step we connect all switches that share the same X-line. For easier identification different colors should be used for X and Y. This spares you some unpleasant surprises and a lot of resoldering.

The picture shows X0 and X1 already soldered.

Make sure that the cables do not get too long. KeyWarrior is reading the keys by scanning the matrix. It periodically pulls one of the Y lines to 0 V and then checks the X lines. If the lines are too long crosstalk and parasitic capacitance can delay the signal and lead to errors.

OK, we will do some soldering now…

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[Guido Körber]

OK, all X and Y lines that connect to multiple switches are wired now. X lines are red, Y lines black.

The next step is to solder lines that will go to the KW24-8MOD controller board. This will have to wait until tomorrow…

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[Guido Körber]

It looks a bit wild now. Six X and Y lines each need to be connected to the KeyWarrior module now.

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[Guido Körber]

X lines are connected, Y lines are next. The USB cable is the last step.

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[Guido Körber]

Everything wired up. Ready for testing. Any bets how many errors I put into it?

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[Guido Körber]

Did you make a bet? Zero errors. If you want to see the joystick perform with MAME visit us at the Maker Faire Berlin this weekend (June 10/11th 2017).

We do have special show pricing for the KeyWarrior Module and USB cables are available too.

[Guido Körber]

Last night we received the first of the new starter kits for IO-Warrior56 from the assembly line. Of course we want to properly show them at the Maker Faire Berlin. So we have to build some demo unit.

It is very easy to connect a Trekscan force sensor. A resistor is put in series with the sensor to from a voltage divider. This directly connects to one of the IOW56 analog inputs.

To be able to see that the sensor is reading data we also connect a LCD module to the IOW56.

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[Guido Körber]

No, this is not going to be an electronic harp. This is the solder side of the IOW56KIT2 with the connections for the demo unit. We used insulated copper wire to make the connections. This is a simple and reliable method to wire up prototypes and single units.

IOW56KIT2 has been thoroughly optimised. The IOW56 chip is now soldered direct to the board instead of being mounted on a module. This was necessary to get the A/D converter to work properly. 14 bit is not trivial to handle. Also we could cut the production cost. We dropped the CD and simplified the package to an antistatic bag. This allowed us to significantly lower the price compared to the old kit.

The signal names are now printed on the solder side too, this simplifies wiring a lot.

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[Guido Körber]

Connecting alphanumeric LCD modules and many graphic LCD modules to the IOW56 is very simple. You only need a potentiometer for contrast setting and a transistor and resistor for the backlight. The rest is just soldering point to point connections.

[Guido Körber]

Who would have guessed? After having soldered everything in place it turns out that the LCD module is defective :(

So we remove the LCD, dig up another one and this time we will the this thing with being "smart": The LCD gets a connector.

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